The measures are breaking our backs, but the Troika is unconvinced

Society facing a dead end

 

A sweeping quadruple hit was taken by Greek taxpayers. With the barrage of painful measures “passed” through the multiple law bill, the government is making a final attempt to convince the Troika that we will do whatever it takes to “unlock” old and new loans alike. But even these new laws, which destroy employment, salaries and pensions as well as any tax privilege, were not enough to satisfy the Troika.

It is characteristic that the IMF representatives sent out messages, either positive or negative, that there are still some open issues before the completion of the evaluation for the sixth installment becomes attainable, while they expressed great disappointment at the failure of promoting privatizations.

At the same time, the government is sweepings everything away with a relentless bill of law:

- It turns the public sector payroll upside down and eliminates more than 100 grants
- It leads 30000 civil servants to reserve
- It “snips” most pensions
- It freezes the extension of sectoral agreements for 2 years
- It knifes tax exemptions and tax breaks

Tax-free privileges collapse

With the new provisions, the tax-free threshold is limited to 5000 euros and is raised by 2000 for each child up to two, and 3000 for every child above that number.

Losses for large families are very heavy, since the additional tax exemptions that they had been privileged to are reduced from 12500 to 7000. It is almost certain that this is one of the most heavily criticized provisions of the new law.

For young people under 30, pensioners above 65 and Special Needs people, the tax break is at 9000.

New losses are due after the tax scale changes, as instead of 10 tax levels, there are now only 8. In this manner, incomes of 16000 to 22000 are targeted.

Discounts of spending from tax deductions is now limited to 10%.

- the For medical-hospital care, a tax deduction cannot exceed 3000 euros, instead of 6000 euros that was in effect until now.
- For food consumption, tax deduction is limited to 1500, instead of 3000.
- Energy upgrade spending cannot go over 3000, instead of the 6000 euros in effect until now.
- There is a cap at 1000 for tax relief for compulsory insurance contributions.
- Tax deduction on legal services costs is repealed.

The topsy-turvy on tax deductions will have a retroactive effect from 01/01/2011